A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet.

This is not PRISM - but a different system. The slides are damning, as always.

It validates claims made by Edward Snowden, and makes it clear that US government officials have been lying all along. There's no court order required for any of this - in a supposedly modern democracy. Crazy.

If you think the gun nuts are on the side of the NSA, then you woefully misunderstand either the gun nuts, or the NSA.

Sorry, but the polls suggest that most Americans support the NSA. There is no reason to think the wider political spectrum is not reflected in the gun-toting demographic. Sure, they may be skewed more towards libertarianism, but that still a sizeable chunk of gun-toting pro-fascist nuts.

Furthermore, many gun nuts are Christian conservatives more concerned about Muslims and Atheists than they are about the government. In fact, they wish to be the government and impose their brand of religion as law.